The Most Wretched of Creatures
by Katu-Bunny
Summary: Based on, and written in the style of: Phantom, a novel by Susan Kay. AU story, about Erik's time in Persia. What would have happened if he had not sent away the shah's gift? ErikxOdalisque, ErikxKhanum. Rated for sexual themes.
1. Chapter 1: A Kingly Gift

A quick note to the underage and squeamish:** this fic is rated mature, for** **everything! **By everything, I mean: swearing, drug usage, sex, molestation, necrophilia, and talk about squicky ideas. This ain't your gramma's fanfiction.

That having been said, I have attempted to handle all of these subjects with some decorum, and with an open mind, I do not believe that you will find anything offensive within this fic. If you do, I humbly apologise.

I do not own anything, not even a little slave girl.

* * *

I did not know how long I had been in Persia. Somewhere I had lost count of the days, between my beloved masonry for the shah and the continual amusement of the Khanum. Occasionally I would get time to myself, which is to say, time to spend with the Daroga. I was rarely alone, and while you would think that this would be a blessing for a man like me, I promise you that, in this case, it was not. 

However, I was currently enjoying the first moment to myself that I had had in some time. There are some people who will complain endlessly about a lack of free time, but yet, when faced with a day off, will complain of boredom. Boredom, I have always thought, stems from a lack of creativity, and I have never suffered from it. Tedium, perhaps...annoyance that the time is not going faster, but never precisely boredom.

I was currently at an indecision as to how to spend my time. There were so many things I desperately wanted to do, and I had such little time to do them in. Tinkering was out of the question; the project I was working on would have occupied more time than I had. Composing, likewise...and in any case the strange (but beautiful, I have to admit) music in this land was influencing my style in a way I was not certain I was fond of. Drafting would have felt too terribly much like work, at this current moment, and I wondered if I could persuade myself to simply...sit still, for a while.

I sat down on one of the lush floor-cushions that had been provided for me, and tried to simply relax. To let go, to empty my mind of all thought. I crossed my legs as I had seen the Orientals do, lay my open hands on my knees, half-closed my eyes to the pleasing reds of the setting sun, and concentrated on my breathing.

About two minutes later, restlessness seized me and I decided to go take a bath. Making an exasperated noise in my throat, I stood to arrange it. Just then, there was a knock on the door.

"Who's there?" I asked, hoping to heaven that it was not a summon from one of this country's simple-minded rulers.

"It's me, Erik, and a few others."

With a sigh, I replaced the mask, and said, "Come in, Daroga."

* * *

It was early when I heard the news; idle gossip from the flapping mouth of one of the many eunuchs in the harem. My dressers had barely finished, the anklets yet unfastened, when the first mention of it showed itself. I was to be given to the khanum's strange magician, as a kingly gift. 

Everyone knew of this palace magician, and everyone feared him. He was brusque, fearful, with a hand at legerdemain that no one could rival, and an equally proficient knack for murdering. He was a Frenchman, tall and masked, and it was widely rumoured that listening to his voice was to be likened to being touched by Allah, a blasphemy no one would dare give any true weight to. I had heard many things; that he could speak to the dead, that he was a fallen angel, that the shah had secretly chosen him to succeed him as the King of Kings. The truth was in there, somewhere...though I did not know where. And now, I was to be given to this foreigner!

When first I heard I did not believe - I would not! I had celebrated my fifteenth birthday but a few months ago and completed my training only a week after that, surely there was someone more to the man's specifications! Someone more mature, experienced. Then I thought that it was likely just a practical joke, concocted to frighten me...but deep in my heart, I knew that the eunuchs were generally too simple-minded to invent such things.

My old wet-nurse, Mastaneh, tried to comfort me, saying that it would not be so bad.

"A man is a man," she said to me, "Whether he is French or Persian or Russian, whether he is Muslim or Christian, or Allah forbid, an atheist. He is a man, and you know how to treat one, now. You will do well."

"But Mastaneh!" I cried, "It is said he wears a mask, because he is horribly ugly underneath! What man could be so ugly that he needs to wear a mask?"

At this, she slapped me, though not hard. She clicked her tongue at me, and gave me a stern look. "Are you not yourself wearing a mask? Are you so terribly ugly?"

This quieted my mouth, but not my fears. I could not imagine a face so unpleasant that it would need to hide behind a mask...

When the official news came, a day later, the fear that had been festering in my stomach was confirmed. I still had a hard time believing...could this man be so important to the shah that he would charity me away to him? Not that the shah cared for me personally - I would not dare even dream such an honour! But an untouched odalisque is a prize reserved normally for the Shadow of God himself. He was giving me away! To an unbeliever! I was to be a virgin sacrifice to this heathen creature, and I knew that, by law, I would have to submit to him. I wondered if I would rather die.

I barely remember being marched to his estate, thick hands wrapped around either of my arms like the copper armbands I wore. I have no memory of the rest of his abode, the surroundings blurring past my worried eyes as if I were on the back of the wind itself. I keenly remember, however, being dragged into the man's room, behind the Daroga, and being mesmerized by the figure before me.

* * *

It had been my unfortunate task, as the chief of police and as Erik's keeper, to bring him the appointed gift, that afternoon. I say unfortunate because of the reaction the girl gave me, never mind the reaction I feared from Erik. 

The poor thing wailed when she heard, and fell to my feet in a mass of jingling coloured gauze. She pleaded me to choose someone else - she was too young, surely she was not satisfactory, could I find no other? She carried on as if she were mourning the death of her father, not her virginity, and eventually I found myself so embarrassed by the scene she was creating that I was forced to order the eunuchs to shut her up, somehow. A blow to her pretty, veiled face curbed her hysteria, and I took pains to be kind to her from then on.

I reminded her gently to act with more decorum in front of her new master, and she tearfully agreed. I knew, as probably no one else would have assumed, that she was in no danger, from Erik, at least. If she remained true to her training, he would likely not have the heart even to carry through with her purpose, and send her away with a heavy purse and a ticket to freedom. At least, such is the way I had seen him treat others.

As we led her to Erik's home, I tried to brace myself for any possible outcome. I didn't precisely know how Erik would react - part of me wondered if he wouldn't contrarily try to send her back, risking offense to the shah - and I was almost certain I did know how this impressionable young creature would react, especially if she saw my friend's face. But even with my careful steeling, I could not have prepared myself for what was going to happen when we arrived.

The burning lust in Erik's eyes was apparent even before the girl had been shoved in front of the eunuch guards. I have to admit that I was almost frightened by this sudden display of base humanity, and the man was forced to bend almost double in an attempt to control his unexpected rage of passion. However, his self-discipline was admirable, especially in a man not known for his desire to control himself, and I found myself highly impressed.

"The shah, the King of Kings," I began unsteadily, nervously playing with the edge of my clothing, "offers you this great gift in recognition of the services you have rendered both him and the khanum. An odalisque virgin, from the Shadow of God's personal harem, to be your slave and your...companion."

There was a small moment of silence. I had been instructed to say "wife." When I did not, the eunuchs sent me a bemused glance, but I found that in the here and now, I could not bring myself to use the term inappropriately. I was aware of Erik's disdain for my customs - for he showed me this disdain at every opportunity, it seemed - and I knew that where he came from, "wife" meant more than "slave." I felt the same way about this, of course, trying to force Rookheeya's beautiful face from my mind, but many Persians did not, and I feared Erik's retribution for bringing the matter up.

Silently, I waited for the man, whose eyes seemed now strangely aflame, to speak, if he could.

* * *

A slave girl, I'd thought. Part of me said: how quaint. Part of me said: how awful. But what the majority of me said was, for the common courtesy of the reader, unprintable, even if I could put it to words. Her eyes were barely visible beneath the oppressive veil that she wore; yet her mid-riff was bare, and her breasts barely covered by her not-quite-opaque fabric bustier. It was a strange mockery, and had I been thinking clearly I might have noticed that I was forced into a similar taunting; my body was fine to see, if a bit thin, but my face... 

As it was, I was not thinking clearly. As you may have gathered from your knowledge of your author, I had never been with a woman. I had never precisely pursued the matter with the intention of alleviating it, and it may safely be said that no one else had attempted to alleviate it for me. I was not often tempted by lust, any more...but in this insatiable Persian heat, and from being dogged right and left by a seductive khanum, I was weakened to the incredible sex appeal that the trembling female before me posessed.

The daroga, my only friend in this sweltering wasteland, had mumbled something about a gift; a companion. I hardly paid him mind, though the idea somehow managed to travel into my lust-fogged brain. Her hair was a luxurious jet black, long, and wavey...Her kohl-smudged eyes were brown and innocent...

Against all my manners, my good breeding, my eyes travelled downward. Her tan feet were bare and hennaed, adorned with bell-anklets that jingled with every shift of her weight. The gauzey pants she wore made no attempt to hide the soft, round calves and thighs they encapsulated. Her middle was adorned by chains of jewels, her navel cradling a tear-drop opal like a precious child. Her scant torso covering was skirted by threaded chains of beads that twinkled alluringly in the bright sunlight, and it was even possible to see the outlines of her dark areolas through the fabric.

Normally Persian women dressed with more decorum, to put it lightly, but this girl was not intended to function in society; she held one place, and that was not in public. Her clothes were thoughtfully crafted to reach straight into my loins and grab my attention; crafted with the intention to tempt. And tempted I was, though I tried to resist.

She stood still but I could see her eyes begging for the courage to struggle, to escape. All too easily could I picture her lithe, curvaceous form as she writhed, vainly fighting the guards who kept a firm grip on her. Yes, she wanted to escape, and I found I could hardly blame her. While I may have held such things as concubines to be an outdated concept, and though I admit I was almost offended that the shah thought me a man to indulge in such low, base gratification, I was, in my weakness, prepared to accept such a gift. Indeed, with almost avid gratitude.

* * *

His eyes were like gimlets, I was frozen to the spot. The power of the man was terrifying, with every move of his masked head, every twitch of his hands as he tried to control himself, a very real kinetic sexuality flowed through the room. Even the eunuchs on either side of me seemed aware of this master's charisma. 

I would be lying if I said I did not find myself attracted to him, despite my fear. How could one not be? He was tall, much taller than I thought most of the men in my country to be. He had a grace, an air that was almost catlike, predatory and seductive. And even though he seemed to be suffering from a momentary weakness, I could sense an unmitigated power throbbing through him, an inner strength that defied nature. It was no wonder to me that he'd been described as a fallen angel.

And then there was the mask. It depicted a cold, sculpted handsomeness, with an aquiline nose and chiseled features. I was curious as to what he hid under that mask...his face would have had to be roughly similar, for the mask to fit at all, and I could not imagine anything that even partly resembled that mask could be ugly enough to hide. I wondered if he would take it off, though at the moment that was almost the least of my clouded thoughts.

He looked me up and down without shame, and I felt his yellow eyes boring into my tender young flesh. Every inch of my exposed body, and most of it that was covered, was laid open to this man's vigorous scrunity, to his ravenous eyes that must have been kohl-smeared to protect his western eyes from the eastern sun, for I could not see anything but the light glinting off of his yellow irises. He seemed entranced, and certainly enticed. You would have thought he had never had a woman before.

He ordered me brought forward with a sharp rasp that did not at all reflect the beauty I had expected to hear. _That_ voice was so beautiful that it had caused the eunuch to blaspheme? I did not try to keep my balance as I was roughly tossed to the floor in front of the tall foreigner. I dared not look up at him, and kept my eyes trained on his feet in a gesture of subservience, and I wondered if he would have the decency to send away the policeman and the eunuchs before he forced himself upon me.

Without a moment's notice, suddenly I felt my veil being ripped from my face, and the fear of being exposed before so many men frightened me as much as my skin revelled in the sudden welcome breeze. Unable to ignore this obvious sign of command, I looked up at him, and he spoke. This time, his voice was much sweeter, even in its harshness, and I began to understand my blaspheming companions.

"How old are you?"

* * *

Fifteen. The damned thing was only fifteen. I had been beginning to suspect that the khanum was behind this unexpected gift, and now I knew. Certainly any man who was capable of carnal feelings would be tempted by a luscious, fifteen year old Persian virgin. I looked down at her jeweled head, at her dark skin and those eyes, filled with fear and loathing for me. Fifteen! Would she even know why she was here? 

"Have they told you what is expected of you?" I demanded, as the lolita at my feet tensed, as if expecting to be struck. Her eyes strayed away from my mask, choosing the relative safety of the floor to rest upon.

"Yes," she whispered, and if it weren't for my exquisite hearing I should not have even caught her answer. So she did know, then. She was probably well-trained, then, according the backwards customs of this horrible nation. I knew, then, that if I decided to force myself on her, she would submit, terrified though she may be. But I didn't want to rape a fifteen year old innocent, not really. I would much have preferred her compliance.

"Very well. I have seen what lies behind your veil, my dear ... now you shall be accorded a reciprocal honor. Come forward and remove my mask," I said, simply. I doubt the girl could have known what that sentence implied; having been confined to a prisonal harem all her life, she could have no inkling of what great tolerance and trust it took for me to grant her that small gesture. Though she did not mean to offend me, I was rather hurt when all she did was stare at me in mounting horror. Irritably, I spoke again.

"To refuse me now is to refuse the shah himself," I said, and despite my best efforts I felt my temper begin to flare under the heat and the intense sexual frustration, "If you resist, I shall take you by force and then return you to execution at his hands," I snapped. I knew I would do no such thing, but at the time, all I could think of was bedding this blossoming woman, this exotic concubine, "But only come to me willingly for this one night and I swear you shall go free at dawn. One night buys you the rest of your life and the means to spend it in honorable comfort. And perhaps, after all, that night will not be so terrible as you fear..."

I almost immediately regretted my rant. In my desperation, I found that I had unwittingly resorted to threats, bribery, and almost to pathetic begging. What the Daroga must have thought of me, then... To complete my utter humiliation, the girl had begun to press her hands together as if praying, and I saw tears running down her hidden face. She was begging me to reconsider, silently pleading that I would not do as I so longed, that I would not have her beneath me as I threatened I would. Her desperation scratched along my unhappy shame like a knife along my spine.

"You would rather die than lie with me?" I cried, incredulous. I wished desperately that the two of us were alone, but I continued, "You would truly rather die?"

Again, she did not reply, and somewhere in my mind I began to wonder if the creature could speak at all without being forced. Likely she was never taught to. After all, it seemed that silent women were very popular in Persia. I scowled at this crying mime, who was bowing her head and pressing her hands together most pitifully. I rather fear I lost my temper with the girl, and kicked at her angrily, causing her to cry out.

"You will get out," I commanded, pointing at Nadir with an accusatory finger, "Take those imbeciles with you. If the girl lives, I will send for you to claim her later." The three men, held in fear of my awesome fury, were all too eager to leave the room, and I bolted the door behind them. But as my friend left the room, my anger seemed to leave me. The overwhelming rage that had been carrying me suddenly deserted my body, and it was almost all I could do to make sure I found a chair before I collapsed.

This did not seem to be the reaction the girl was expecting, for she stared at me, still lying on the floor in a vulnerably winsome position. I poured myself a drink as if she were not there, attempting to curb my unpleasantly strong emotions. The heat was getting to me. I had to get out of this damned country. If only the damned khanum would let me be for long enough that I might finish the shah's palace...I strove not to think of it, not to think of the girl lying on my floor. However, I could feel her damned eyes on me, even as I drank, and I prickled at her.

"What?" I cried, sharply, "Did you expect that I was going to come back and rape you?"

I suddenly realised that she had, because that was precisely what I said I would do. The fact that her wide-eyed fear was now my fault only served to irritate me further. "Well, I don't intend to, though since it seems to be your preference, I suppose I could kill you."

The girl did not speak, but I could have sworn, for a moment, that I felt an almost sorrowful, apologetic air about her tensed shoulders. I sighed wearily. "Do you ever speak?" I demanded.

"Yes," she said, again so quietly that it is a wonder I heard her at all.

"What is your name?" I asked her, and there was a minute pause.

"I'm only a slave," she whispered humbly, "I do not have one."

"What!" My outburst was much angrier and more forceful than I had expected. Every day I stayed in this damned country, I learned something new about it that I disliked. Even myself, the lowliest of creatures, had the right to a name! I frowned at her so fiercely that she almost appeared to melt beneath my gaze, pressing her face to the floor and extending her arms in a kowtow that would have impressed the most arrogant of sultans. "Then what am I supposed to call you?"

"A name may be given to me, my master, if it pleases you," she said into the wooden floor. I ordered her sharply to get up, and she respectfully rose into a kneeling position, which I left be. Had I asked why she did not get to her feet, she surely would have replied that it was disrespectful to stand in front of one's master, or something equally idiotic, and I did not care to become more incensed than I was. I found myself frightfully irritated at the shah, or moreso than usual, for his gift. Instead of presenting me with a luscious morsel of a concubine, I rather felt that I had somehow acquired a needy daughter, without the pleasantries of seeking to create one. I would have to name her myself? What stupidity!

I was not at all sure I wanted to deal with this. The lust that she inspired in me was not precisely ebbing, but it was being suppressed by a growing depression, and I suddenly wanted only to be alone.

"Why don't you go away," I intoned coldly, "You don't want to be here, and I don't want you here. So leave."

"I can't," she replied, and in my ire, I stood suddenly and approached her with anger in every step.

"Why not?" I shouted, and her tears immediately restarted, as she made a token effort to move away from me. "Why do you just lay on the floor like a wilted flower? Your legs work, so I suggest you use them to take yourself elsewhere before I make good both my promises!"

She looked again as if she wished to protest, but she did not. She slowly began to lift herself to her feet, but I regret that I was too furious to give this any credit...I could no longer control myself. Violence coursed through my veins with an angry vengeance, and before I was really aware of my actions, the girl's small throat was in my hands. She did not fight back, and this angered me further. How could Persia have trained a race of humans not to fight back when their very lives were threatened! I choked her as if it were the corrupt government that I was killing, not some nubile young female, and after a moment, I felt her go limp in my grasp.

Now, with the breath taken from her comparatively small form, did the adrenaline begin to ebb from my body. My vision cleared, and I saw, it seemed for the first time, the motionless girl on the floor. What must have happened immediately occured to me, and I felt quickly for a pulse in her bruising neck. Her heart was still beating, though very slowly. I cursed myself for my lack of control, and bent to lift the girl from the wooden tiles.

Appropriately, I lay her down on the bed, and tended to her. I objected to harming females, as a rule, at least those with no great ability to fight back...and this one seemed not to have that ability at all. And so, like those various animals which I grudgingly took into my home and nursed back to health, I cared for this nameless beauty. I removed her neck jewelry and felt along the skin to make sure that her windpipe was not permanently damaged. Luckily for her, it was not, though she was not yet breathing.

I was not sanguine about resuscitating her, but I couldn't very well let her die, despite my better (or perhaps bitter) judgement. So I quickly removed my mask, held her nose and pressed my mouth onto hers. I suppose it was my first kiss; given in a moment of professional action, to a girl who not only despised me, but was unconscious. How romantic my life is.

A few breaths, and a few calculated blows to her chest, and her lungs eased reluctantly back into action. I doubted she would come to for a while, however, and I took this opportunity to make sure I hadn't done her any more harm.

* * *

I thought for sure I was dead. My head swam with dizziness, and the light playing before my half-closed eyes was erratic. But as my vision slowly returned, taking in the scene around me, I came to realise that I was not dead at all. My throat felt strange, uncomfortable, and I recalled what had happened. 

All my training, since I was the youngest of children, had taught me one central lesson: obey. Everything I had ever learned taught me that to obey unthinkingly was my only chance at that fleeting dream of happiness...obey, obey, obey. And yet, when I had been given the first chance to practise my skills, I had broken that singular law. I had denied my master what he had requested of me, twice...and now what was to become of me? I deserved death, yet somehow it had not come.

I felt hands on me, fussing at my jewelry, and I moaned groggily as I turned my head to look.

I could never in a thousand years have prepared for what swam in front of my wide eyes. Gaunt, pale, sunken...this Death's face that stared down at me with a horrifying expression! I saw yellow, catlike eyes set into deep sockets, and an abnormally long-fingered and skeletal hand, reaching for my head! Death had come to claim me, after all! I did not tell my mouth to begin screaming, but it did on its own, and I desperately attempted to escape from the skeletal visage before me.

* * *

She screamed. Oh, how she screamed! I was really beginning to find this whole business tedious, and I unkindly poured a shot of _arak_ down the girl's offending throat, and turned from her. She coughed and spluttered, eventually recovering her breath. When she had, she had apparently decided to do me the favour of ceasing her piercing shriek. I had replaced my mask by this point, and was standing by the wall in supreme indignance. 

"Allah," she mumbled, and it was the first time I had heard her speak voluntarily, "What _are_ you?"

I sighed, and crossed my arms. "I am the Angel of Doom. Haven't you heard of me?"

The girl did not meet my seething gaze, and I could not blame her. Brave men have blanched under the stony glare of my blank eyes. She was half-sitting again, leaning on her arms in a pose that looked entirely too attractive for my comfort. "Lie down," I ordered, and the girl's eyes flashed fearful again as she obeyed. I realised with irritation that she was still convinced that I was going to force myself on her. "For Heaven's sake, girl, desist from this incessant worrying. I told you, I have no intention of raping you."

And I found, now, that I did not. The burning lust which had so captivated me, and drawn me to this young concubine, had ebbed, conquered by my massive will, extinguished by my damp depression. I felt empty inside, somehow, as I always did when a particularly piquant thought occured to me. And this particular thought, the thought that I would never know a woman's love, was a very powerful one of its kind. I cursed myself in my weakness; cursed myself for being so damned emotional about such a thing, despite my hardened nature...but a part of my mind cried out with the justification, "How many men have been turned down by a Persian sex slave? Have I not the right to be offended?"

When I had absorbed the little comfort that offered me, I cursed myself again for thinking of the girl that way. I felt my mind drifting toward that inexorable downward spiral that always ended in thoughts of a vain suicide that never played out. I was aware, of course, of the usefulness of such spiralling destitution. It was almost always in such unpleasant occurences that my best music was composed, my best drafts drawn, and lately, my best tortures concocted. But I did not feel inspired to create, a feeling that I rarely became acquianted with, and my hands immediately began to grope the table for the bottle of unfeeling, but quickly inebriating, alcohol.

However, I was not to drink more than one hastily downed gulp before my quarters were again intruded upon. I cast an irritated glance at the girl on my bed - a strange phrase, to me - who now appeared to be asleep. I was not worried for her, having been highly educated on the finer points of strangulation and relatively educated in allaying such an occurence. She would be fine, and I turned, then, to my intruders. I looked at the daroga and his entourage with a cynical eye, waiting for the expected phrase to emit from my friend's mouth: "We heard screaming."

I was at that moment contemplating my scathing retort, unsure of whether my depression would allow for the extreme swaggering arrogance my choice phrase would imply. However, the words died on my lips, for though it was clear to me that Nadir was concerned about the girl's health, that was apparently not the business on which he came.

"The khanum has requested your immediate presence," he said, and I saw his eyes darting toward the open door to my bedroom. Whether or not he could see the girl's prostrate body on the covers was unknown to me, but it would likely have offered him scant solace, since she looked as dead as could be when I had glanced at her. I admit to being sadistically amused at the daroga's uneasiness, though this was replaced with shame when I remembered that he was - or had been, I thought with some regret - a father; and the girl chosen for me little more than a child. I spoke, at length.

"You will permit me to collect myself," I said, and indicated the shoddy state of my clothing. The daroga nodded, and I entered my room, sliding the door shut behind me. As wood collided with wood, the girl's head jerked up. Not asleep, then, just perfectly still. Strange creature.

I walked to the hateful mirror hung up against the wall, and began to fasten up the buttons that had come undone in my ire and carelessness. I could feel the girl's eyes on me, and I found that despite my desire to be kind to her, my irritation was rising yet again.

"I should think you would know better than to stare so," I snapped, and immediately I sensed her bow her head in silent apology. I took a deep breath, attempting to regain my composure, and then began to speak. "I will be gone a while," I said, "I won't likely be back before dark. I expect you to be gone by the time I return." At this, I heard her mouth open in protest, but I waved a hand to silence her, "You will find sufficient money as you can need in an area of which I will tell you...I expect you to take as much as you need, no, as much as you want, and be gone. Speak to the Daroga, he will arrange you a carriage, if you like. You may go anywhere. But _do not be in my apartment when I return_," I ordered, turning on her angrily, "Or you will face a punishment worse than that of the shah himself."

She nodded, terrified. The Daroga and the two guards who accompanied him were still standing in my quarters when I emerged, groomed and with a young girl in tow. The relief that flooded the Persian policeman when he saw the unharmed slave girl was almost embarrassing, and I was hasty to show the three of them out the door. I then, urging the girl to be silent, showed her where I had been hoarding my twinkling shards of beauty. I instructed her to leave the jewels be, however, the paper money and coinage was fair game. She looked at me with horror, and I knew that she wouldn't take it if I didn't force it on her. Slightly exasperated, I grabbed a reckless and extravagant handful of notes and shoved them forcibly into her hands.

"Take them or risk my wrath," I ordered, and she shamefully but quickly tucked them away into some hidden pocket in her voluminous pants. I stood, then, though she remained kneeling at my feet, looking up at me with wonder. I crossed to the door, and turned back to her one last time. "Remember, be gone by nightfall, or your punishment will be swift, but painful."

The door shut behind me, and I composedly faced my friend and my escort.


	2. Chapter 2: The Khanum's Pleasure

* * *

Chapter 2: The Khanum's Pleasure

* * *

The man who was called Erik had been summoned, and I waited impatiently for him. He always kept me delayed at his leisure, something that I one day intended to make him pay dearly for. But...not today. Today, he was too useful.

I had sent away my servants. I was tired of the rumours that were spreading throughout the harem, and after I had been bathed and appropriately dressed, I lay on my divan, alone and properly weary of this tedium. I was not ashamed that I had taken to meeting my Angel of Doom in the same room, with little more than a gauze curtain between us, though the man who had spread that news did not live to spread any more. If he had, he certainly would have ignited the whole harem with my latest scandal; I had chosen to remove my veil.

I wore a veil because, in general terms, it suited me to do so. I did enjoy the mystery that comes with such a mask; and it pleased me to know that beneath it, I was more beautiful than even that mystery could imply. However, it also pleased me to show Erik what I willingly chose to hide. It incensed him to think that someone as beautiful as myself would hide their face when they did not have to, and then he would think of his miserable plight, and become even angrier. It was really quite amusing, not to mention attractive.

A servant appeared in the door, and carefully kept her eyes glued to the floor as she spoke, so as not to see my facial nudity. If she saw, she knew she would be killed, and it was as much a selfish gesture as a mark of respect. I smiled at the top of her head with portention that was lost on the girl. "O Khanum," she bowed carefully, "The magician is here."

"Show him in," I ordered, "And then wait outside."

The girl did as she was told, and a moment later, the tall and nearly skeletal form that I had come to almost love, in a peculiar way, entered.

"'The magician,'" I mocked amusedly, "The magician indeed. Tell me, Magician, could you possibly conjure yourself up any later? Your tardiness really does grow tedious."

"I am afraid you called at an awkward moment," he said, coldly, confirming that he had indeed received my present. I brushed some dark hair away from my shoulder.

"I dare say I did. That is partly why I wished to talk to you. However, I do have a momentary task for you," I said, letting boredom flood into my voice in droves. I reclined back on the bed, stretching my arms lazily as if I were going to ask him to do nothing more horrible than fetch me a glass of water.

He bowed slightly, his attenuated form pulling forcibly on the fabric of his coat, accentuating his gauntness of frame. "How can I be of service," he intoned, and though it was meant as a question, his funereal voice dragged the dipthong down into the mud of his tiresome depression.

"The girl that brought you in," I said, still maintaining my lofty and detatched air that I knew would so irritate him in a moment, "I want you to kill her."

The sight of his all ready stiff form get even straighter was so tickling to me that I had to control the urge to laugh out loud. Even through his mask, I could see him frowning deeply, and his glare only served to make me joyful. "Bring her in here," I ordered, trying to keep...how did he say it? Oh, yes. Trying to keep _l'ennui_ in my voice, to hide my excitement.

He strode silently to the door and opened it. I heard his voice but not his words, and a moment later, he and the young servant girl re-entered, the door shutting behind them. The girl gasped when she saw my face unveiled, and this was so ironically amusing that I couldn't control my laughter. That she would gasp upon viewing _my_ face...I wondered what she would do if I ordered her to look upon the true face of her future assaultor.

"Am I that surprising?" I asked, deceptively warm. The girl immediately fell to the floor, bowing and scraping, mumbling apologies and declarations of my freedom and beauty. Her adulation would have made any woman preen pridefully, but I was not any woman, I was the Khanum, and this girl had a purpose for me. "Get up, girl! Stop that grovelling."

The girl stood slowly, her head still bowing to me as if she had some sort of tic.

"Erik," I said, gesturing to the young girl, "This girl's name is Chaka."

That was a lie, of course. This particular girl was far too young to have a name...and anyway, it displeased me to name my servants. I was certain that they called one another a specific name, amongst themselves...but what does a lion care what the rabbits name each other? But a name would suit her, for now, since it would assist in Erik's disparagement.

He bowed to her, politely, as if he were a suitor and not a murderer, and said, "Good evening, Chaka."

True to her training, she bowed respectfully to him, and did not speak. She seemed rather confused at having been brought forth and suddenly named, and this naivete was really very funny, if one took the time to think about it. To think that someone could live nameless for so many years, then finally get what they certainly desired most, only to have it ripped from them, moments later.

"What am I to do?" Erik asked, his tone absolutely glacial in the summer heat. I put a finger to my lips in thought, and leaned forward on the divan.

"Show her your face," I said, and though I fought it, one side of my mouth curled up into a delighted smile. He hated being unmasked, but I could not deny myself the satisfying screech of horror that my servant was likely to emit upon seeing his terrible countenance, nor the uncontrollable flinch of shame and hurt that Erik had not yet been able to train himself out of.

I was surprised at the ease with which he obeyed me. I was used to an objection, or at the very least an unhappy sigh...but neither greeted my ears, to my pleasure. Perhaps I was finally breaking his will! This excited me beyond reason. Resigned, he lifted his hands to the mask and drew it away from his face. The servant girl barely glanced at him before she screamed, and burst into noisy, terrified tears. She began to back away from him, eyes unable to move from his gaunt monstrosity, praying so loudly and quickly that it sounded as if she were speaking in tongues.

"Pick her up," I ordered, over the noise, and Erik did so, holding the struggling slave as if she were nothing more than a scarf blowing in the wind. "Hold her to you, Erik." This, finally, seemed to affect him. It amused me that he would sooner kill a girl than hold her close, and I had to refrain from saying as much, to keep focused on the task at hand. However reluctantly, the man did follow my orders, holding the girl's back against his chest as she thrashed wildly to get away.

His eyes did not implore mine as we gazed at each other, and he barely hesitated when I ordered him, simply, to break the girl's neck. Her all ready large eyes widened even further, and she began screaming in a manner most unbecoming to a lady, until Erik masterfully cut her off with a quick snap of her spinal column. The limp servant fell to the floor like so much dirty laundry, and I laughed gleefully at Erik's marvellous performance, not to mention his self-control. He hated hurting women, and I knew that had I not been there, he would have bent over her corpse and mourned.

"Did she displease you somehow, or have you simply missed my talents?" he asked me, coldly, betraying his true thoughts to me.

* * *

She'd given me the girl's name on purpose. It was easy enough to kill, frivolously. The Khanum had taught me to love the thrill of death even more than I all ready had. But to end the vitality of a body was different, far different, from murdering an innocent servant girl.

Chaka's lifeless body slipped from my grasp, and I dared not let the anger or sorrow in my heart show in my expression. My depression from earlier had not ebbed, and I felt a sudden urge to sing a requiem for that pretty dead thing on the floor beside me. How easily it could have been the girl sent to me laying there, now. How wastefully life was spent, here.

"Did she displease you somehow, or have you simply missed my talents?" My tone was icy, but my heart, regrettably, ached. The woman's almost childish laughter at the girl's death, and now at my contrition, grated on my nerves as so many of her mannerisms did.

I could not quite see her clearly through the curtain that held decency in place, but I could see enough to know that she was not wearing her veil. She mocked me, without seeming to intend to, but I knew better than to think that any pain or unhappiness she caused me was not maliciously and meticulously planned beforehand. She was hardly dressed, as scantily clad as my slave girl (what a hateful phrase!) had been, though she was much thinner, and her body was showing signs of age. Her arms lay like willow fronds across her many pillows, her wide hips accentuated because of the position she chose.

"Erik, do you remember a conversation we had, a while ago?" she asked, ignoring my question.

"Refresh my memory," I said, replacing my mask onto my face.

"Don't put that back on," the khanum ordered, suddenly angry and petulant, "Take it off again." I opened my mouth to protest, but she cut me off with, "You may make a pithy comment first, if you wish, but do take it off."

Checked, the pithy comment died on my lips, and I shamefully removed my mask. Despite my irritation at the woman, I had to admit that I had deserved that. The presence of this immensely predictable woman was beginning to rub off on me. When my mask lay discarded on a lamp table, the khanum spoke again, as if she had not been interrupted.

"Do you recall, I asked you if you had ever had a woman. If memory serves me, you didn't answer me."

"Perhaps I can remind you that I did answer you, madam" I said, calmly, "If you remember, I said that I am terribly busy."

"Perhaps a more direct answer would be prudent," she replied, instantly. She remembered my reply, of course. And, for that matter, she knew the answer, as she had then...but that did not satisfy her. Only by admitting my humiliation could I satisfy her perverse longing. I sighed heavily, and though I desperately wanted to stare at the floor, I looked that hateful, tempting woman directly into her unveiled eyes.

"No, _madam_," I said, with politeness so pointed I could have stabbed her with it, and would have, for that matter, "I remain virginal."

There. I had said it, to the greatest extent that she desired, and I had managed it without a demeaned sigh. This seemed to please her, as she leaned forward suddenly, a look of acute interest on her elegant face.

"What did you do with that girl I sent you?" she asked me, and I sighed. I'd been right. I almost always was, especially involving the predictability of the khanum. I was suddenly glad that I hadn't touched the girl. If I had made love to her when I had refused the attentions of the most powerful woman in Persia...

"I ate her," I replied, scathing mordancy dripping like poisoned honey from every syllable. The laughter that burst forth from the khanum was riotous, startling and disturbing. I had been expecting her wrath, but it seemed she was in a good mood, today.

"So...even when I send you the means to your end, you do not follow through," this appeared to interest her greatly, as she paused for a moment in thought, and then continued, "Are you even capable of wanting a woman?"

That comment was meant to incite me to anger, and it might have, had I been anything other than aware of the khanum's tendencies. Of course I was able, and again, she knew that I was...doubtlessly it had been reported back to her what had happened between myself and the slave girl...but she would insist on insulting me.

"Next, madam, you shall be asking if I also require oxygen to live."

"Sometimes I do wonder," she said, playfully, and then spoke again. "Erik...I know your name, but do you yet know mine?"

Even my adroitness at reading the khanum's thought patterns did not prepare me for that. I was taken slightly aback, and probably pulled a face before replying, "I do not." Which was true. It had occured to me, of course, that she probably did have a name, but I suppose I had never precisely cared what it was.

"It is Vashti."

"Ah," I replied, unsure of where this was leading.

"It means beautiful," the woman I now knew to be named Vashti continued, and she pulled the curtain away, revealing her face to me clearly, "Do you find it to be fitting?"

I paused for a moment, before answering in the affirmative. And she was a handsome woman indeed, though she was approaching her middle age. Scowl lines traced around her mouth, and hints of crow's feet were vaguely apparent at the edges of her eyes, beneath the caked make-up...but I would have gone so far as to call her beautiful, yes.

She smiled at me in such a manner that let me know that I had narrowly avoided punishment, "I'm so glad you think so."

There was a long pause, as the woman before me gazed directly at me, almost hungrily. Her eyes scanned me from head to foot, with particular attention to...to a certain area that caused a light blush to attend to my pale cheeks. As a matter of fact, she was almost unabashedly staring, now, turning her head from side to side as if to get a reckoning on my girth. Slightly appalled but highly aroused by this shameless behavior, I knew she was baiting me, once again. She was making me think that she was interested in me, to see how I would react. Would I let my guard down? Or would I simply turn bright red and say nothing. Determined not to give her the satisfaction of heightening my opprobrium, I cleared my throat.

"Why, precisely, have you sent for me, madam?" I asked, as frigidly as I could manage, given the fire in my belly. Only now did her dark eyes stray from my lengthening chagrin to my face. There was a look of light surprise in them.

"You do not know?"

"No, madam," I replied, truthfully, "I do not."

She sat back, as if genuinely shocked at my words. I felt my temper flaring, as it always did when I did not feel that I had complete control over the situation at hand. I was not certain what the khanum was thinking, not sure what she had intended for me, and this disturbed me. But she was not to reveal her plan, just yet, for the next thing she said to me was a complete non-sequitur.

"I think it quaint that you continue to wear your stuffy French fashions in Persia," she stated with an arrogant smile. I barely paused at this sudden change of topic, being at least slightly used to the khanum's disposition to abberation.

"It pleases me," I replied, shortly.

"But the heat," she insisted, and someone who did not know the woman might have mistaken her argumentativeness for concern for my comfort.

"When there is heat in France, we still wear these clothes."

"Hah! You westerners are fools," she stated, unequivocally. I found myself disinclined to point out that she presides over a country in which the women wear pants and the men wear skirts. In any case, I would not have had time for my comment, because she immediately followed her sentence with, "Would you care for a seat?" she asked, gesturing to the space beside her, "Or do your stiff trousers not allow it?"

"Perhaps I prefer to stand," I said, feeling my heart fill with trepidation. I was aware of her improprieties...meeting me at first in the same room, then with the opaque, guarded curtain replaced with a layer of gauze silk, then completely alone, and now without her veil...but to invite me to sit beside her was surely a breach of her social mores so extreme that she could not have meant it.

"I wonder if I was unclear," the khanum breathed, sending a shiver down my spine, "I recall ordering you to sit down."

* * *


	3. Chapter 3: Kissing the Dead

**Warning: This chapter earns the R rating.**

-

Chapter 3: Kissing the Dead

-

I didn't know what to do. I couldn't keep all this money...I could not accept such a gift from him...yet I feared that, somehow, if I disobeyed him again, he would find me and his wrath would be terrible. So I'd come, eventually, to decide that I would keep just enough to get me away, and put the rest back.

Then I realised that I had no idea what denominations were what. Nor, for that matter, could I count. Well, that was not true. I could count to thirty, and so I decided to simply count out thirty notes at random, and hope that it would get me out of Persia. I lost count nearly three times, though eventually I was sure I'd gotten in right. I then left the remainder of the notes lying on his desk - I could not re-open the cache he'd shown me - and went to go.

The door swung open easily, and I stepped out. I felt great trepidation, simply leaving like this, but I was under orders to do so...and the consequences for disobedience had been made all too clear to me. The floor was cold beneath my bare feet, and I realised suddenly that I was not wearing all that I came with...my necklaces were gone. Oh well, he could have them. Nothing was going to stop me from getting out of this place, though I did not know where to go.

"You! Slave girl! Where are you going?" The voice made me look up in horror at the massive guard from whom it had come. He was tall, muscular, terrifying...a man, not a eunuch. I instinctively bowed to him, though I wished desperately to run. "What is that you're holding?"

The bundle of money fell from my hand, flitting around me like careless butterflies as I dropped to the floor, pressing my forehead to the ground, speechless. It would be useless to say that I'd been ordered to leave, that he had willingly given me the money...I would not be believed. It was obvious that I had tried to rob my master and escape, and there was nothing I could do to prove otherwise. I felt his hand grab me roughly by one arm, while his other retrieved the errant notes. I did not struggle, but hung limply in his grasp, defeated.

"A theif, are you? And to so new a master, too. Do you know what happens to theiving slaves?" he growled suddenly, dragging my face to his by lifting my arm ungently. I kept my eyes cast to the floor and shook my head, willing tears not to fall. "You will have both your hands cut off, last I'd known," he hissed.

"But please!" I shouted suddenly, surprising even myself. The guard looked at me with shocked contempt, and opened his mouth to speak, but I interrupted, "I ask nothing for myself...I deserve any punishment that is coming to me, but I beg of you, do not displease my master further!"

It was a strange idea, I thought...lying in this manner. Of course, it was acceptable to lie to a man ("Yes, most satisfactory!", "Of course I did, many times.", "The largest I've seen!"), but not normally for one's own benefit, and I had to wonder what had gotten into me. But, possessed by this strange demon, I continued, "My master is the khanum's sorceror! He would be vastly displeased if I, his possession, was disposed of without his express permission. After all, do you not think it likely that he wishes to punish me, himself?"

"I feel he could punish you even without your hands," the guard smirked at my terror, and my mind raced for an egress.

"My master...has use...for my hands," I said, portentously, "I believe he would wish a different punishment on me. Unless you wish to feel my master's anger at you, I beg you, please only lock me up and keep me inside until he returns, momentarily."

The man stared into my veiled face scrutinizingly, searching my eyes for signs of trickery, and apparently he found none, for he then returned me to my master's house. I saw him stuff the money into his own pocket, before he forced me roughly through the door. I stumbled into the house, unsure of what to do now. I could slip through a window, perhaps. There was certainly some way out...

"Don't think of escaping again, slave," came a sudden angry cry from the doorway, "I will be watching every window, every door. And if I see you come out again, I shall bring you straight to the shah!"

I bit my lip. I knew that what he said was true. I could not escape while he kept watch. But...perhaps they would change the guards. If nothing else, I was much more likely to contrive my escape in darkness. He said he would not be back before nightfall, and that was not too far away...I would just wait until the sun set, and then leave, before he got home. I would not take the door, of course, for I might have run into him, there. I would take, perhaps, the bedroom window. That way, if he came back before sunset, I could slip out the window when I heard the door open. I gingerly, sat down on his bed, then, to wait, with a great fear growing in my heart.

-

"I want you to make me a new toy," the khanum said, simply, as I sat down warily beside her. She lay back against her pillows languidly, and regarded my discomfort with pleasure. The divan was soft, softer even than my own bed, fittingly. The cushioning sank down beneath my weight, light as I was, and I looked at the khanum with well-concealed distaste.

"What purpose should it serve?" I asked, though the answer was obvious.

"To amuse me, what other purpose?" she asked, as if there were no other. I supposed, to her, there wasn't.

"Other than the obvious, madam. Any...specifications?"

"I should like it done in a week. Postpone all else if you need to, but I wish it finished," she ordered. I hated her ambiguity. If she wished me to make her a "new toy," the least she could do would be to give me some instruction. And to postpone all else, for this...I felt the fuse of my temper begin to burn low, and took a deep breath to steady myself. Just as I was preparing to serve the khanum with a pointed silence, she spoke again, "Something colourful, perhaps...you know what it is that I mean. Spinning blades are a favourite of mine. And make it multi-purpose, something my son could use against his _Babi_ dissidents."

"Ah," I said bitterly, smiling without mirth, "I see."

"I thought you would."

"An idea is all ready forming," I lied.

"Good. I trust in your ingenuity," she whispered, "And that is a great compliment, coming from me."

"Thank you, madam."

There was a long pause, as this unpleasant woman and I stared at one another's faces. The khanum shifted slightly, and would have given me a better look into her scant _decolletage_, had I been looking. Then she spoke, her voice flowing over me like honey wine drenches Italian tablecloths when spirits are high.

"I gave you my name, Erik. Yet you do not use it. I do not believe it is a mark of respect. Explain."

"Isn't it?" I retorted, too quickly, "In my country, even if we should know the name of someone above our station," at this I saw her smile, "We do not use it."

"Such is also the case in my country. But you do not seem the type to accord such respect, I have noted." She was testing me, I knew...but I was not precisely sure what was the correct response. I would have chosen to remain silent, but the daggers in her eyes warned me that silence was insult. I fought off a smile at the angry indignance the woman would endure, should I obey my impulse, but something made me reply.

"I did not know you were giving it to me to use."

Her smile was dryer than the desert that surrounded us. "That is because I was not," she said, simply, "However, it does rather surprise me that you, in your arrogance, would hesitate to use it."

I did not say that I wished to remain as detached from her as possible. I did not say that, if faced with a particularly mean-spirited, but inherently lowly, snake, I would refer to it in much the same manner. I did not say that her lofty air amused me to no end, that her pleasure in placing herself above me was disgustingly childish to me...but I thought all of these things.

"Erik," she began again, rousing me from my embittered thoughts, "Where precisely did you learn this...sadistic genius, which you possess?"

-

He seemed to become immediately introverted at my question, and I wondered if he was not becoming soft to me. I waited impatiently for his answer, and it was not long in coming.

"It was within me all along, I believe. As it is in everyone. If you are asking if it was taught to me by a specific person, then my answer is no. But...when a dog is treated with nothing but cruelty, it learns only to be cruel," he said, and there was such rampant, obvious self-pity lining every syllable that I was almost sickened by this display of weakness. Perhaps to remind him to keep his strength, I snapped at him.

"Well, someone like you cannot expect anything better, can they?"

He seemed stung, though perhaps it was only my imagination. I had never seen him in a state of emotional vulnerability, and while this normally intrigued and pleased me...on Erik it only angered me.

I have never claimed to love anyone, my entire life. Not even my own son could demand anything more than a brief flicker of concerned affection from my defective heart. But Erik had achieved something that no one ever had, which was a kind of respect. It was not love, for I barely knew the feeling, but I was aroused by his unflappably cool facade, his ridiculous arrogance, and of course, his genius. And to see him in a state that hinted that he might indeed have true emotions, like the human race which he so despised, revulsed and horrified me.

"If I did not know any better, madam," he hissed at me, and I found with glee that the void of emotion, save anger, had again taken its place within him, "I would think you were insulting me."

I smiled, mollified from my irritation at the effect my words had had on him. "If you profess to 'know any better,' then perhaps you do not know me as well as you thought." There was a slight pause and, to satisfy the silence, I added, "I suppose it is possible to venture so far into the realm of hideousness that you can come out the other side. I believe you have achieved this."

"Only you would think of that, madam," he said, his glowing eyes boring into my own.

"You flatter me."

There was another small pause, and I took the opportunity to shift my weight so that I was a little closer to Erik...to this corpse I employed. Any other man in his place would have radiated heat, from embarrassment, arousal, anger...but Erik was so delightfully cold that I began to wonder if blood ran through his veins at all. Perhaps he was cold-blooded, as reptilian as his face conferred.

"Erik," I said, and I could see the hairs on the back of his neck rise as my breath caressed his face, "What is it that you desire, besides money?"

There was a moment as he paused in thought, before scoffing at himself and half-smiling. "To be honest, I do not care over much for money, madam."

"I wonder why we pay you so well, in that case. What, then, do you desire?" I inquired, mentally making a note to speak to my son about lowering the man's exorbitant fees for building and entertaining.

This time the pause was longer, and I began to wonder if the damned man intended to answer me at all. He was excellent at wriggling his way out of answering questions which didn't suit him. Slippery as an eel, and as clever as a fox. Sometimes, he simply did not reply at all. But as I was about to throw another empty threat at him (damn my son's cursed need of him!), he spoke.

-

I knew better than to say what was on my mind, what was in my heart. As a matter of fact, I knew better than to even feel it. I suppose that, had God descended from Heaven and promised to grant me any wish, any wish at all that I could think of...I would wish for the two things which I desired most: Love. Normalcy, and love. But the woman before me was far from being God, though her son might claim to be his shadow, and she wished to hear about my cursed loneliness even less than I wished to speak of it. So instead I replied,

"Solitude, I suppose. And time. Two things I have been desperately in need of, lately."

"I shouldn't think you were in a position to complain," she snapped, but the venom that would normally accompany such a phrase was absent, and I wondered what could be troubling her.

"What is it that you care about?" I asked. The khanum objected, normally, when I dared to ask her questions, but she had an immense vanity that would not allow her to be truly displeased when someone wished to know about her.

The khanum's head rolled back for a moment and she gave a derisive laugh. "Precious little."

I coughed slightly, almost a chuckle but not precisely so, and shook my own head. "I wish I could be so lucky."

"Make no mistake," she added quickly, "I concern myself with far more than I actually care about. My son, for example."

Despite myself, I found the words, "You do not love him," rising to my lips, floating past the wall of defence, to sink into the pool of the khanum's consciousness.

"No," she replied, with a certainty and a finality that quite sickened me, "Frankly, I wonder if I do not simply hate him."

-

The sudden anger that I saw in Erik caused a naughty little twinge inside me, and I sat up eagerly to witness the outburst that seemed imminent. His shoulders tensed, his eyes swung down to the floor like fatal pendulums, and I could see his long, manicured nails digging deep into his palms. As I observed, a droplet of crimson sprang up from beneath his finger, solving the mystery of whether or not the man bled. I admit, I rather expected it to be blue.

But Erik's breathing, miraculously, remained even, though slightly laboured, and in time, the high points of colour that had been forming on his deformed cheeks began to fade. Still he kept his eyes averted, but he now released his death grip on his own palms, and wiped the blood absently off on a handkerchief that he withdrew from his vest pocket.

I waited to see if he would speak, but he did not. He seemed quite content to sit in his furious silence for all eternity, and I have to say I was almost willing to let him. But I had called him to me for a reason, and I do so hate to wait for what I want.

"Sometimes," I said suddenly, breaking the silence unceremoniously, "I wonder what it is that you can think of me."

I could see that it was anathema to him to have to answer, but the words came, nevertheless. "I think...that you have a 'sadistic genius', as you put it, all your own, madam."

"Do you find me beautiful?" I asked, leaning forward. To his credit, he did not lean back, though I could smell his fear of me.

-

"Yes, madam," I replied, reluctantly. There was a sudden energy coursing through the khanum that rather put me off. I began to wonder exactly why she had called me here. Well, I tell a lie. I had been wondering since the moment I arrived why she had called me...but now, I feared I might know.

But, no. Simply ridiculous. I was, as the khanum had said herself, ridiculously arrogant.

"How beautiful?" she persisted, and moved ever closer to me. I noticed, for the first time, the serpentine way she coiled toward me. The unconscious shifting of her lovely hips from side to side, the way her breasts - small though they were - rose and fell as she breathed, nuzzling one another affectionately within the confines of her boustier. Her eyelashes were thick and long, covering beautiful dark brown eyes, and though I did not say so, they rather put me in mind of a camel's eyes. Camels may be odourous, unlovely creatures...but they do have pretty eyes. However, I doubted I would live long enough to explain my reasoning, if I should choose to mention my thoughts to the khanum.

"I think an appropriate adjective would be 'terribly'," I replied, at length. I could feel my mind begin to cloud with the red haze of lust that had all ready claimed me once, that day. I was helpless to fight it. After all, if even thinking about camels did not dispell the feeling, I was not sure what would.

"Do you want me, Erik?" A third and final blow to my weakening resolve, I actually physically recoiled at the sudden rush of torrid lust that filled my veins and gorged my all ready stiffened yearning. The khanum's hand snaked out toward me, deadly and enticing, and a finger ran the length of my jaw. My body shuddered with longing, involuntarily, and I heard a low chuckle come from my seductress's throat. "Do you believe yourself loyal to me, Erik?"

My mind was aware that she had spoken, that a response was required, but I felt almost as if the connections in my brain were being hampered, and it took me a moment to become sane enough for speech. "I am unsure of what you are asking me, madam."

"It may surprise you to know that I am not so arrogant to assume that your loyalty to me is strong enough for me to actually trust you," the khanum said. Strange words from a woman who was seeing a known killer in her room, testing his patience and his temper, without the aid of nearby servants.

"My work has seemed to satisfy you, thus far," I replied, employing my own unnerving tactics on her. I had not precisely answered the question she had asked, but neither could she deny that I had answered her question. However, if she felt any irritation at my demurrance, she did not show it, for she smiled a catlike, predatory grin at me.

"Indeed. And I hope it shall continue to do so. You see, Erik...I have been thinking, recently, of...diversifying your duties," she whispered, her voice a pink fog lousy with pheremones that drifted, seemingly innocently, across my senses.

I forced myself not to stutter. "What would be required of me?" I asked, though I feared, above all things, that I knew the answer.

"If you do not know that, you are less of a man than I took you for," she snapped at me, and I did not bother to correct her, "Are you prepared to extend your duties to me, Erik? Or would you prefer to return to your _masonry_?" She spat the last word as if it were poison, and I knew that, though my answer was of course that I wished to finish my work, I could not say so.

"Do I have a choice?" I asked, bitterly, though if truth be told it was hardly a question at all.

"No," she replied, but then seemed to think better of her sudden denial, "Well, perhaps you do have a choice. Yes, there is always a choice. But at the moment, Erik, the choice is loyalty to me, or death."

I did not think that the khanum would kill me, even if I refused her, but as my assignment neared completion, and because, as only the Daroga and I knew, I was not even truly needed to finish it, and furthermore, but perhaps lastly, because my loins ached desperately, I did not chance it.

"I believe," I had to whisper, for I did not trust my voice, "that I could find the time to please you in whatever manner you order me to, madam."

The khanum laughed in sheer delight, and leaned forward with all the shameless alacrity of one of the shah's cats in heat. Her jewelry tinkled pleasantly as she raised up onto hands and knees and approached me like a lioness approaches her prey. Though I was trying to keep my eyes averted, I daresay I caught a glimpse of her tongue - as pink as any western woman's, despite her dark skin - darting out to wet her lips in anticipation of my only half-willing deflowering.

She knealt before me, and her hands twined like creeping vines beneath the fabric covering her breasts, lifting and exposing, tossing the unwanted garment away. It landed on the dead serving girl, I noted with horrified displeasure, but there was nothing at all I could do. I knew she wanted me to watch her, but I dared not. I had never before seen a woman naked, not in the flesh, and I was now not certain that I wished to. But as my eyes caught a glimpse of a row of small jars on a shelf installed into the wall, reminding me of the constant threat to my manhood, my eyes ran to the comparative safety of the khanum's breasts gratefully.

Then, suddenly, her face was before mine, sex pulsating in her aura, the heat scorching my face pleasantly. Her lips ghosted over mine, and she then explored the rest of my face with hers, toying with her prey. Then, without warning, she kissed me. It was hot and searing, a true kiss, but with an edge of danger that made it all the more delicious. I did not move to kiss her back, though it cost me great effort, for I did not yet know what she expected of me, and I was determined to remain stoic.

She broke off and spoke into my mouth, her words slipping in through my teeth like the food which I so despised, "Your lips are cold. I feel like I'm kissing the dead." Again, her mouth claimed mine, and I waited patiently until she pulled away again.

"Perhaps just Death itself," I whispered hoarsely, and I heard breath catch in her thoat. She gave a low moan and moved ever closer to me.

"Now that excites me," she said, and the passion with which she next kissed me, I must say, took me quite by surprise. The khanum's two favourite things were death and carnal love, and she seemed childishly delighted to combine the two. She wriggled up against me with fleshy nakedness, her small but supple breasts rubbing tantalisingly across the soft fabric of my shirt.

Her hand blindly found its way to my collar, and her long nails stroked my skin absently before her fingers deftly went to work on my buttons. Unwillingly, I suddenly and violently regressed to my childhood. The hand on my shirt was ham-like, the smell of garlic and sausage surrounded me, the cruel, chuckling voice of my master rang in my ears. If it had not been for my iron-strong desire to remain stoic, this sudden memory would have nauseated me to the point of vomitting. I was unsure of what attracted would-be molestors to me, what about my unforgiving ugliness made these bloodlusty tormentors desire to take me, forcibly or otherwise.

I had killed Javert, the gypsy man who would have had himself buried within my unwilling young body before I could think to scream. Instead it was I who had done the penetrating, in the form of a knife to his stocky chest, then to his gut, and finally, beautifully into his trunk-like neck. I tasted blood for the first time that night, and I was shocked to find just how pleasurable it was to me. And with this thought, my memory morphed from a nauseating fear to a sudden and categorical lust. The khanum's long tongue had reached out and was exploring my now bare chest, causing the skin to revel in the warm touch.

I was determined that I would still make no sound, no motion until I felt completely safe in doing so...but her nails cut through the fragile skin stretched taut across my gaunt ribcage, and when she lapped up the blood that sprang up, I betrayed my stoicism with a moan. This electrified her, and she grasped my shoulders hungrily. "Lie down," she ordered, and her growling alto stroked my rapidly hardening lust as tangibly as if she had done it by hand. I obeyed unthinkingly, wishing only for this to continue, and she bent over me and kissed me full on the mouth. She stroked the faint wounds on my chest, now, and brought her fingers to my lips. I tasted my own blood on the hot plush of her fingertips, and when I moaned, I felt the woman's tongue invade my mouth, carrying with it the irresistable lust for the kill, for the sexual gratification that I had never yet known.

I kissed her back, now, with fervour, and she made a noise that was not so much a purr as a growl of pleasure. Then, to my dismay, she broke away and sat up. I was helpless to stop the small, disappointed sound that escaped my throat, and the khanum's derisive, self-satisfied laugh at having entranced me so thoroughly filled me with a shame so encompassing that it was almost arousing in itself.

"Normally," the khanum now began in her serpentine dulcet tone, removing her pants absently, "I hold my lovers to a rather high standard," I thought of the jars with dread, "However, since this is your first time, I will allow you a small error margin."

I did not respond, but as she peeled my pants away from my obscenely stiff manhood, I knew I was being granted a great favour. Suddenly exposed to the warm Persian air, and to the cruelly scrutinising gaze of the khanum, I braced myself for some derisive comment. But her hand reached down suddenly, and as she stroked me, all thoughts of anything except the overwhelming, saturating pleasure, left me. In my haze of deeply ecstatic sexual delerium, I vaguely heard her remark coyly, "No small jar, indeed."

But even if I had thought of chuckling at this obvious comment, even if I had thought that I might overcome the immense intoxication that the khanum's hand was granting this poor, pathetic, untouched man, I was soon showed that neither of those was about to come to be. My senses exploded into white-hot fragments of what was left of my sanity as I felt her mouth envelope the head of my boiling lust. The sound that left my mouth like a wave from the sea was alien in its intensity, and though the unparalleled _kundalini_ seemed to reach out in indefinite vastness, in reality it was only seconds before I came.

Like a nubile volcano spewing forth its first powerful spurts of magma, I tensed in the crippling seizure of my orgasm, so immensely overcome by this pleasure and release that I was nearly sick from it. The first expulsion of unhappily hoarded male product was caught and devoured by the hungry mouth of the khanum, urging on a feeling so intense that I was not certain I would survive. But then my benefactor suddenly seemed to decide against the wanton swallowing of my tangy ecstasy, and sat up without warning. There was a terrible second when I felt a gaping rift open up beneath my floating form; the empty horror of this feeling being cut off before its time, the ravine of not being touched, and I soundlessly screamed for it not to be so! But her hand soon calmed my wildly desperate fear, and urged from my spasming loins every last ounce of sticky, white satisfaction.

I sighed, despite myself, and felt myself settling into the calm and untouched oasis of afterglow like a child into its warm, soft comforter. So complete was my bliss that even the portentous phrase that the khanum next uttered did not touch me for some time.

"That," she said pointedly, contriving to indicate the throbbing pleasure ebbing from my loins, "was your error margin."


	4. Chapter 4: The Face of Death

**Warning: If you were at all offended by anything in the previous chapter, I beg of you to skip this one. This chapter DOES deal with dark themes, including murder and necrophilia.** **If you are easily upset, do not read this. Flames will not be appreciated.**

-

Chapter 4: The Face of Death

-

I allowed Erik a few minutes to recover. He barely moved to clean himself up, which from what I had heard was quite unlike him. He was fastidiously clean, usually; yet here he lay, blood crusting on his chest, sweat pooling in his emaciated stomach bowl, and his own semen slowly dripping to join it.

But soon it seemed that his nature penetrated even the thick shell of his sudden trance, and he reached for the edge of his errant shirt. He half-sat up, removed it, and used it to mop up the mess he had made, before dropping it conscientiously over the side of my divan. I noted with some pleasure that he made a point to avoid dropping it on my servant girl.

I was just beginning to contemplate how I next wished to take him when I sensed his eyes on me. Those yellow, horrible eyes that would set any brave man to shivering beneath his bedcovers. They twinkled at me in the darkness, like those of a cat. He did not speak, and I did not bother to encourage him to do so. I let my hand reach once more to that source of recent obsession for me, stroking its impressive length with barely concealed enthusiasm.

I had seen it through his pants, of course, and had occasionally even asked him about it (oh, his greying skin turned a wonderful crimson when I did!), but my imaginings barely did justice to its glory. I had seen it, now, and touched it, and even tasted it, yes...but I had not yet had it.

And afterward, afterward I would have it removed, preserved, perhaps even keep it for personal use, later on...if it could be managed. After all, a man like Erik was not likely to find a use for it, ever again. Perhaps I would even be doing him a favour. Unless, of course...I removed the means, but not the desire for the end! Oh, how brilliant that would be, to leave Erik with the taste of satisfaction, with the longing that would inevitably ensue, but remove his only means for relieving it! A fate worse than death, certainly. I admit I was so pleased with myself for thinking of this that I laughed aloud, before swinging one thigh across Erik's skeletal form and gripping his erection with the intent of aiming.

-

This was not the first time it had occured to me that I did not want to do this. Having experienced all ready a release which promised to keep my head spinning for hours, I was not prepared for any more. But the khanum's hand was insistent, stroking me with reverence, and I felt my body react against my will. It felt good, I could not deny this, yet I did not want it. I did not want my virginity claimed by this beautiful, but affectionless woman. A woman who could not even love her own son...very like a woman I once knew. But while I would gratefully have accepted any touch - any touch at all, mind you - from that woman...the khanum's attentions were infinitely less welcome.

She barely waited until I was finished recovering before she laughed with delectation and positioned herself atop me. From my vantage point, I could see myself at the spring of her sex, and a black ball of anger, of fear, of abhorrence built in my belly. And when she began to wriggle herself down my newly turgid passion, it exploded into burning fragments of confused ecstasy. This beautiful woman above me, around me, raping the virginity from my unwilling grasp, enchanted and pleasured me more than I had ever known before. As her black sex tainted my sheet-white skin, I almost welcomed this baneful despoliation. Hatefully and lustfully, I surrendered myself to the orgasm which rushed forward with white-frosted waves.

"If you finish before I order you to, I assure you that for the rest of your life the _only_ thing that will interest you is masonry," cried the dam that stoppered my sudden succumbance. My legs tensed in the effort to stop what had almost begun, though I wondered if I should not simply damn the consequences and let go.

"Madam," I said, through teeth gritted in an effort to postpone my imminent orgasm, "Do you really think I shall ever do this again?"

That seemed to please her, for she moaned, and ground her hips against mine with a renewed vigour that threatened to cause me to burst. I dared not move lest I release my iron-hard grip on the reins of my release. It was David fighting Goliath...I did not stand a chance, and yet somehow, I must prevail. But I was a hopelessly untried man, untouched and undesired...for Christ's sake, I had never even touched _myself_, before! And with each grinding thrust I knew I was fighting a losing battle.

Time was meaningless to me, now...Sensation pawed at my loins incessantly, painfully, until I knew, without a very shadow of a doubt, that I could hold back no longer. And as my mouth opened to let loose the carnal growl crouching in my throat, I felt the khanum tense around me, heard her moaning suddenly and with a clarity that I had not thought possible. For a split second, I dazedly emerged from the hurricane of torture into the sunshine, before I was dragged suddenly into a spasmolytic sea of my own seed. I drowned helplessly in this much-delayed release, in the black murk of this delicious sin. I was vaguely aware of my head colliding with the softness of the khanum's bosom before falling down again into the feather pillow as my ravished loins vomitted forth their last potent eruption.

And then she was gone, and I was exposed to the cold, uncaring air in her lieu. I felt her depress the bed beside me, and through the grey fog that was clouding my lungs, my eyes, my heart and mind, I heard her speak.

"Not bad for your first try. Good enough to survive for your second, in any case."

This woman didn't give an inch! Forgetting any fatigue in my ire, I turned my head to her, gathering my wayward arms back into myself, and scowled. "What use would I be to you, dead?" I snapped.

"For the next four hours...?" She asked, and even if I had been an imbecile, I would have known what she meant. I laughed ruefully as I lay my head back down, eyes trained on the ceiling. How predictable.

-

"Artless," I said, as I adjusted myself to comfort beside my newfound plaything. "Certainly not what I would have expected of you, Erik. Luckily for you, your size makes up for your total lack of technique."

I had expected him to retort that he had been pure - not pure, perhaps...but virginal, at least - that he had had no practise, but he did not. As a matter of fact, he did not say anything, allowing the silence to settle like a death shroud over us. I waited for a moment, but I admit, I felt insatiable. I was not lying when I said that Erik had no technique, no great talent for sexual interplay, but I did not want him any the less for it.

"Come here, Erik," I ordered softly. I would have to give him time to recover - a lesson I had regretfully learned, long ago - but in the meantime he could still please me. As if through a quagmire of thick honey, Erik dragged his angular body to my side before laying himself down again. "Let us pretend," I said, as his head took up residence on my shoulder, "Now, you have, on your bed before you, a nubile young girl...in a state of undress. What would you do to her?"

Erik sighed and I saw a smile burst subtly onto his lips before fading again into his funereal standard grimace. "To be completely honest, madam, I would ask her what she was doing there, and tell her to put some clothes on."

I felt my temper flare, and snapped, "Then let us continue our pretense for a moment, and say that you are a _man_, not a _fool_. Show me what you would do, Erik."

-

The khanum's anger rejuvenated me. Reminded me that I was not a helpless boy in the clutches of a female rapist. I was a man, and had as much power in this situation as I could desire. I chastened myself for my imagined weakness, for letting this awesome pleasure reduce me to such a quivering, pathetic being. My wits gathered to me again, my shattered confidence pulled back into shape, and as the khanum now ordered me with daggers in her tone to act as if she were twenty years younger...to treat her as I had wished to treat the slave girl she had sent me, I felt no trepidation.

I thought: it was likely to be my last chance at this sort of endeavour, and I supposed I should not bother with being shy, as it was obviously not what the woman beneath me desired. And as such, I confess I rather ravaged her. Though with every rough grope, every scratch, every bite, her passion only increased, and as my hand carefully caressed her neck in a mock-strangulatory gesture, she moaned and bucked up against me. That was what inspired me.

"Fuck me again." With a childlike attention span, the khanum had bored of this game. I sighed deeply; I was not yet recovered. My body threatened to pull me back down into the raging depression that lay just beneath the surface of my thin protective shield. I was managing just - and only just - to remain above it, aided by the inspiration which lurked in the forefront of my brain.

"A moment?" I asked, for the breaths in my chest still came ragged, and the muscles in my arms were beginning to tire. I doubted she would grant me this concession, and her thoughtful silence rather surprised me.

"Because it is you, Erik," she breathed, into my ear, which caused my loins to jump. Perhaps she was not so predictable after all.

-

This second time, Erik was marvellously more passionate. It was as if he instantly conquered all that he dabbled in, for he now masterfully stroked and thrust into me. His hands moved constantly, an unbroken caress, across my breasts, my waist, my neck, my face. I lay beneath him, languishing in the sweet, unhampered pleasure of Erik's size and sudden deftness.

He was hurting me, both with unfettered nails and with violent penetration, but I hardly cared. The line between pain and pleasure had blurred, for me, many, many years ago. It was now not even there...I feared no earthly pain, and when I felt Erik's hand slip to my throat and gently hold my head to the pillow, I moaned in the audacity of his arousing gesture. As I did, his free hand came to join its companion, and they settled snugly, but not fatally, around my neck.

It was marvellously close to threatening, so incredibly arousing to watch this skeletal man wrap his hands around my throat. I felt as if I were being claimed by Death itself, as if it were the God of Death inside me now, pleasuring and harming. I had finally seduced my only true fear, reduced it to nothing...I held no terror of dying, then, for if the Reaper Man could be seduced, then I was invincible.

However, my confidence was not to last long. Erik's hideous visage morphed into an even uglier grimace as his thrusts began to climax. His grip constricted, and I felt a pang of terror shoot through me, negating my own release. I would see him beaten for his overzealousness, beaten in addition to his other punishment, but as it was, I had to persuade him to stop, first. "Enough, Erik." But he seemed not to hear me. "Enough!"

-

"Stop it, Erik," she ordered, and her normally sultry voice was growing hoarse underneath the weight of my thumbs. "Stop, or I will call someone!"

"Call, then, if you still can," I growled, redoubling my grip, "You had me kill the only servant within earshot."

I saw fear fill her eyes, and for that moment alone, she was a woman, properly belonging to the half of the world known as the "gentler sex." Silently, she begged me not to do this, please, she was afraid...please don't do this to her. My stomach filled with anathema and my throat with remorse, but I couldn't let go, now. If I let go, knowing that I had made an attempt on her life, I would not live to regret it.

In a surge, the faces of all the men - and women - that this murderess had ordered me to kill swam past my blurring vision. As the khanum's face distored into an unlovely grimace, her open mouth begging for breath that would not come, my regret disappeared instantly. Her dying body spasmed around my excitement, and I came, violently and with a passion that bordered on spiritual. I cried out like an animal, some primal scream that was ripped from my throat, and there were tears in my eyes when I fell, like a tidal wave, onto the motionless chest of the woman who had taken my prolonged virginity.

When I could again move, I raised my arm and placed my thin hand on her face. "Perhaps now you are satisfied," I whispered to her unhearing ears, "Now that you truly have kissed death." With an air of finality, I pressed my lips against her slack ones, and bit her lower lip gently as I pulled away, sitting up. I shut her eyes with an absent gesture, and was about to withdraw myself from her cavity when a terrible idea occured to me.

I would have given it little thought, but my libido gave an indication that it was not quite finished, and to my shame, I found myself inexorably enticed to erection within her dead womanhood. She lay limply before me, and I caressed her still form with something bordering on affection. Then slowly, gently, I began to thrust once more into her wet warmth.

Her head lolled to the side, a trickle of blood escaping her open mouth, and her arms were draped, moribund, across the bed in an unusual display of openness. This beautiful khanum, obsessed with the death she feared, wobbled involuntarily beneath my increasingly enthusiastic thrusting. No moans escaped her dead mouth, her dead eyes did not flutter with pleasure, no breaths crept past her crushed windpipe, and yet her deep, welcoming sex was as warm and wet as it had been when she was alive. As slippery and dangerous as any treacherous cave, her body begged me to finish, to fill it with hot liquid ecstasy one final time, and I was more than pleased to indulge it. I lost myself in this dead woman, crying out again as a final orgasm tore through my sensitive body, and afterwards I felt as if I, too, might die.

My delerious mind filled with the thoughts of being discovered, two corpses entwined in an obscene coupling...what the daroga would think. The picture of his saddened, sickened face hovered in front of my eyes. I do not know if it was that image that prevented me from just allowing my lifesource to expire, or if I simply was not meant to die, after all...but I soon rose from the bed, replacing my clothing meticlously, and a familiar emptiness claimed me.

No, despite what had happened, I would still never know the love of a woman. Physical gratification had been nice, had been more than I had ever dreamed of, but there was no love in the act. I found that my heart began to ache with a vigour that had me rather taken aback. Silently, I crept back onto the divan for a moment, unsure of the motives for my actions, and lay my head on the khanum's still bosom. My tears drifted down her bruised breasts, pooling in her navel like nectar in a bitter flower.

I do not know how long I laid there, but it cannot have been as long as it felt. I fought my way to my feet, eventually, and began the uneasy trek back to my quarters. I must have looked a mess, threading my way through the harem, and I received many sympathetic looks from the girls and eunuchs that I passed. I reached the gate in silence, and entreated to the guard at the door.

"The khanum wishes to be left alone for the rest of the night," I stated, with a confidence that defied all doubt, "The punishment for anyone who disturbs her is to be devised by myself."

The weight of that threat was not lost on the eunuch, nor anyone in the immediate vicinity. I had bought myself some time.


	5. Chapter 5: The Embrace

- 

Chapter 5: Embrace

-

There had been no signs of the girl attempting escape. I was rather pleased with myself, with the terror I had inspired in that little slave girl. And to no small profit, either! The bundle of notes sat safely within my pocket, and I patted it affectionately. That would buy me a fair amount of fun.

The sun had set some time ago, had tucked itself neatly beneath the bed covers of the horizon to sleep, and I was preparing to switch guard shifts, soon. I watched until just after sunset, and then someone else would take over. It wasn't the best of jobs, but it was better than being a muck-shoveler, or carrying around a sedan chair. I mean, it wasn't easy, working underneath the incompetent Daroga that had been appointed...but at least it meant that I got a decent amount of freedom. I sighed, twirling my sword easily and absently as I waited for my successor to arrive.

Presently, I heard footsteps approaching, and smiled as I stepped forward to greet my comrade. But it wasn't him at all; in his stead was a gaunt, masked man, striding wearily but with all the unstoppable purpose of a glacier. I quickly stood to the side; the Khanum's sorcerer! I had heard that beneath the handsome mask he wore, his face was rotting and filled with insects. That his eyes were glowing scarab beetles, and that instead of a human one, he had only a black goat's heart. He was said to be a Necromancer, to be able to perform feats that only the Devil was capable of, and I admit that even I was a little frightened of this beastly man.

"Master," I said, and afforded him a deeply respectful bow, but he did not even acknowledge my presence. "Master, your slave girl...I - "

"Yes," he said, now, and his voice was troubled with deepest loathing, "I know all ready. Do not bother to tell me."

The door was closed to me before I could even reply. Of course, it had been stupid of me to assume that such a magician could not foresee the future. And then, a sudden fear seized me: suppose he knew that I had taken the money? I could not be caught, it would certainly mean the end of me! I would have to leave...perhaps even leave Persia completely...I did not know how far this man's magic could extend, where it could reach me...but with the money that I now owned, I had sufficient to get me to Egypt, or further! Enough to start a new life...

With these thoughts filling my unhappy brain, I fled.

-

As I shut the door behind me, I wondered if the brainless guard had harmed the girl on her way out. I swore desperately that I would curse him to a life of utter misery, if he had. I was shaking my head and pressing my hands against my chest, now, as I wandered further into my apartment.

My eye caught the pile of money lying on my table, and my heart sank. That damned fool girl! Did she think she stood a chance out there, without that? But then, I thought to myself, did I really think she stood a chance out there, at all? She was more likely to be raped and robbed and murdered in these honourless streets than she was to find a place for herself. Perhaps I should have sent her to Nadir. That poor man could use a concubine, though as I recalled he all ready had a few. Nonetheless, I'm sure he would have appreciated such an _honoured gift_. But it was too late, now. I sighed. I had effectively killed three women in one night, and it weighed heavily on me.

But no tears were left in my eyes, no energy left within me to mourn what I would bitterly regret in the morning. I must simply surrender to my sucking depression, to my smothering self-loathing, to my immense and overwhelming weight of unending misery, and let myself slowly expire in my bed. And so I dragged myself, step by painful step, to my room.

-

In the darkness, I heard the door open. I woke up with the sound of it, terrified, and wondered if I should attempt to hide. It was useless, of course...he would find me, and that would be the end of me...furthermore, I found I was frozen with fear, still shamefully on a bed that was above my station.

I'd been told that he walked silently, like a cat, yet I heard footsteps - stumbling, weary footsteps - coming toward the bedchamber. Like a child, I grasped the blankets for security, bringing it upward to cover almost all of my half-sitting form. And then I waited, grimly, for what I knew was coming.

He swayed into vision, falling against the door as if wounded. He was pitifully disheveled, his shirt wrinkled and hastily buttoned, with dark stains on the sleeves that looked like blood in the dim blue light of the moon. When he looked up, it was directly at me, and the fear that I'd been fighting suddenly returned, full force, knocking the breath from my lungs.

"You're still here?" he cried, and his breaking voice told me of a man who had been through too much for one night. He seemed tried even by my presence, as if I was not more than another problem to be dealt with. A pang of shamed sorrow coursed through my fear, and I regretted that I was still alive to present a difficulty.

"I...have nowhere else to go," I whispered, justifying my presence though I knew I should not, "Death waits for me just outside the door."

"That's strange," he stated, though without emotion, "I would have sworn I was right here."

Tears stung my eyes and fell, as my terrified breath caught in my throat, and I pressed my hands together and silently prayed to my master to take pity on me. My heart beat like a drum in the tangible fright that infused me.

"Are you still afraid of me?" he asked, his voice cutting through the silence like the knife I had expected to cut through my flesh. Without meeting his gaze, I nodded hastily. Afraid was hardly the word for what I felt. I felt his weight depress the mattress beside me, close to me, and I flinched. This weary man, my master, sighed. "You have nothing to fear from me."

"But you said - I disobeyed! I should be killed for my insolence..." I recited, but my heart wasn't in it. We were taught to say such things, may they please our masters, but I could not really bring myself to want to die for the scant crime I had committed. I was too afraid to die!

"I know what I said," the voice beside me intoned, suddenly grieved beyond belief. There was a moment of silence, and a small noise that indicated that my master had removed his mask and set it on the bedside table. Then, he spoke again. "Since you cannot find it within yourself to...lie with me," he said, choosing his words carefully, lest he be pricked by their thorns, "Could you perhaps...open your arms to me, as no one ever has, and..." he spoke as if the words were being dragged out of him, and I felt my fear give way to poignant, unrelenting sympathy, "and simply...hold me, for a time."

The sentence ended, and I could tell that the man before me was too ashamed to even award it the question mark that an inquiry required. I was helpless before him; even if I had not been trained to do so, I would have embraced him willingly - if fearfully - and he lay his poor, unhappy death's head on my mostly bare chest. His hot sigh scorched my flesh as we lay down together in mutual, but not identical, emotion.

There was a long silence in the dark room, as our breaths syncopated and fused in the heat of the night, hovering above our still forms. My mind raced - the khanum's sorcerer was resting his head on my unworthy bosom! This powerful man, called a demi-god by the credulous eunuchs, this Necromancer, this evil genius attuned to murder...was lying tenderly beside a fifteen-year-old slave girl. But at this moment, he did not seem to be a magician, nor did he seem evil...at this moment it seemed he was little more than a terribly weary man. I did not know which frightened me more - his unnatural reputation, or his humanity. That a face like that could be human...

"You breathe heavily, are you afraid?" he asked me, and the suddenness made my breath catch in my throat, betraying my answer before I could put it to words. "Do not be. The woman you know as the khanum is dead. You have nothing to fear."

A chord struck in my mind, and I found myself almost recoiling from my master, "How-how do you know?"

"Nevermind that!" he snapped, with surprising force, but then he seemed to receive the bill for the sudden burst of energy, and fell weak again, "Just know that you will be taken care of."

"But...the shah," I whispered, trying not to sound too alarmed, but failing increasingly as my speech continued, "His retribution will be terrible! He would kill the entire harem, all the eunuchs...just because the khanum would have wanted it that way!"

"You will be spared. I will see to it."

"Yes, master," I said quietly, and somehow, I believed him.

"'Master'," he mimicked, with some modicum of distaste, "Please. Call me Erik."

The sound of his voice when he said his own name, infinitely sad and humble, almost self-deprecating, sent shocks through me as much as the breech of social etiquette did.

"I-I could not!" I stammered, in shock. Again, my heart was racing, but I did not know why.

"Even if I asked you to?" Eri - no, my master replied. Shamefully, I could not even think his name for fear of punishment. I closed my eyes in a gesture of humility, because I could not bow.

"I would never dream of treating myself as your equal!" I whispered, and while this was a line we had been taught to say, at this moment, I truly meant it. My master seemed to understand, for he nodded his head sadly and sighed.

"Indeed not. After all, tonight I am lower and more wretched than anyone."

"Oh, no!" I cried, and he jumped at my sudden vehemence and volume. "No, you shall never be lower - "

His hand moved to my mouth and one long, cold finger pressed my lips shut. My heart skipped a beat, causing me to feel nauseated for a moment, but I soon recovered. Who was this man? This...Erik, this magician? Why was he so strangely kind to an undeserving slave girl?

Sometimes I doubt if even he knew the answer.

-

Despite my exhaustion, I found that I could not sleep. I had thought of sending the girl away, but I could not bring myself to. I could no longer say that this was my first physical contact with a woman, but I wished that I could pretend. I wished to forget the khanum and her wily sadism; her crushing wet warmth. And so I began to speak, not truly caring what I said in my unreal state of mind.

I asked her a great many questions, that night. What she had heard of me, for example. The rumours, I must say, were some of the most inventive I had heard, in all my time traveling, and I had heard many. Apparently I kept a harem of dead ladies at my beck and call, while at the same time it was rumoured that I was sexless, just on the male side of androgynous. I was a little offended, honestly...even if it was not immediately obvious that I was a human (oh, hateful term!), I should have liked to think that I was at least apparently a man.

I asked her, in my delirium, how old she thought I was. She hesitated much before replying, protesting that she was a terrible judge of such things, and I continually reassured her that I would not be angry, that there would be no punishment, no matter what her answer. This seemed to be an alien concept to her, and I felt a flare of lacklustre anger in my heart at corrupt Persia. Eventually, though I felt it almost a waste of time to pursue such a ridiculous question, I coaxed her to answer.

"Perhaps," she began, and I could have drowned in the fear that deluged from her trembling and weak voice, "Perhaps...around...thirty?"

I almost wished to laugh, with rue, but it would have been cruel of me to do so. So easily, I could see the girl flinch and begin tearfully begging for forgiveness, and I hadn't the patience to deal with it. Instead, I merely smiled unhappily. "Younger than most people would guess," I whispered, "Yet still older than I am."

There was a pause, and I could sense her unspoken question. Though she did not dare to ask, I answered her. "Twenty-two."

Twenty-two years old a virgin, though no longer, I supposed. Twenty-two years old and unloved. Twenty-two years of life, and what had I to show but painful memories in a mind that could not forget?

"Do you have any fondness for music?" I asked, employing the miracle of non sequitur to break off my horrible thoughts.

"Yes, of course, master," she replied, and the honorary by which she addressed me bothered me greatly. I wished to be no one's master but my own, and yet, in this sweltering country, it was impossible. That I should be master over this young girl, yet not over myself. But then, that was untrue. The shah and the late khanum may have wished to lord over me, and to an extent I allowed it...but they were not my master. I would never again submit to a master, to serve and fear and call "sir."

"Perhaps," I said quietly, "When I have the energy, I will sing to you."

"I would be most honoured." By the awe in her voice, I truly thought she would.

"It would be my pleasure."

Damn this accursed weakness! I felt lost, devastated...feelings I was quite accustomed to...but on top of them, a strange overlay of...what? Of hope? How could I hope for that which no one could grant me? How could I dare hope that this ignorant little child, this sheltered slave, could love me? But yet, as much as I hated this feeling, as much as I willed it away, it did not subside. It must have been fatigue, must have been this uncanny state of mind which brought such a vulnerable feeling, such that I was loathe to admit it, even to myself, to my mind. I was, beyond question, a most loathsome creature...begging affection from someone who did not know any better but to give it. I was horrendously ashamed of my unthinkable deficiency, my fragility.

And still, my lips betrayed me. "I think I shall keep you," I said, and there was a sharp intake of air from the girl beside me which only served to remind me how wretched I was behaving.

"I...I am honoured, my master," she said, as hollowly as a bowl, but then added, with a tone more sincerity, "And grateful."

I shifted position, slightly, and my hand unwittingly brushed the soft, gossamer flesh of the odalisque's bare stomach. She flinched as I did so, repulsed no doubt by my cold, dead hands. A hurt anger lumped in my throat, and I snapped, "Were you trained to flinch every time a man moves?"

"Oh! No, no...I'm sorry! Please forgive me, I meant nothing by it, I was simply overcome..." she trailed off, and though it seemed she wished to say something more, she did not. I did not pursue the matter, but silently let the irrational anger secede from my heart, insofar as this was possible.

"So you have no name," I voiced heavily, hating the phrase, hating the idea.

"Yes, master," she replied, and that she could reply with such nonchalance, as if having no name were the most normal thing in the world, sickened me. Damn this backwards country! At least my mother had had the decency to name me, even if it was in the sake of an old Catholic priest whose name I would one day despise.

"A ridiculously outmoded concept," I continued, contemptuously, "You are a living girl, not some porcelain doll." I was ranting, to be sure...it was beyond helping. I hated Persia, hated the damned heat, the ancient customs, the mindless rulers, the abysmal architecture. As a matter of fact, there were but two things in Persia that I did not hate; my dear Daroga, and this little slip of a slave child.

"Yes, master..." She replied, but sounded quite hesitant, as if she were not certain that was the correct answer. She feared angry punishment at every corner, and I began to find it tiring almost to the point where I was tempted to blame her personally, and not her infernal "training."

"Well, then, what would you have yourself called?" I asked. If I intended to keep her - and how could I send her away, now, after I had promised to keep her safe? - I would not have her nameless. I would not call her "girl," though the mate to that term had been my name for some time, in my youth.

"I would have nothing for myself!" she insisted, and it darkly bemused me that the times this girl showed the most passion were the times when she was prostrating herself for my sake, "If it pleases you to name me," she added, more softly, "I shall accept whatever name you choose for me. I am yours to name."

"Mine to name?" I repeated, incredulous, "Well, perhaps I should simply name you Mia, then, and have done with it."

"If it pleases you, master," she replied, though surely she didn't know the reason. How on Earth would the girl know Latin? She merely blindly accepted the name, from a complete stranger. And so the little slave girl that I had unwittingly adopted became Mia. And now, perversely, since I had given her a name, I knew I could never think of her as a slave.

I'm sure I drifted to sleep at some point, because the next thing I knew, I had awakened again. The sun had not yet risen, and I therefore assumed that it was still quite early. I gave a small sigh, and let my still-blurry mind go over the details of the night previous, with a detached horror and shame.

I knew I couldn't stay in Persia any longer. Though my every muscle begged me not to, I dragged myself from the comforts of my bed, from the soft arms and bosom which had somehow held me all night. I parted the curtains, and found that it was still dark out. That suited me. I rather wished I could have awoken earlier, but as I looked at the sleeping child on my mattress, I knew that I couldn't have forced myself out of bed even a moment before I did. The poor thing hadn't any idea of the monster she'd cradled in her arms last night, or she surely would have begged for the death that I had promised her. But if nothing else, she seemed even more afraid of her own mortality than she was of me. If only she had felt that way, earlier...

Brushing away the bittersweet thoughts that threatened to consume me, I immediately set to work on packing. I did not have much to bring with, just a few trinkets I'd somehow found the time to invent, my stash of money and various jewels, and a small suitcase of clothing. I left these items, thusly packed, in my bedroom, locked the door, and set out to procure a means of escape.


End file.
